I am so disappointed. I just got the physical version of Starlink. The game is phenomenal. And yet, I will be returning it to GameStop today. Why? Because this is the most expensive way to buy the game. So I have to shell out onto of my $30 dollars, $69 more dollars to start the game with the same things the $60 digital game starts with. I had no desire to play the game using the toys. The $30 sale price is what got me. And to play as StarFox yay! OK buyer beware. I get it. Why is this so complicated? To trick and confuse people and make them have to spend more money in the long run. The bottom line, money seems to be more important than everything-> this is wrong!
OK so the question I am now struggling with is: Will I buy the digital version? And my answer is, I don't think so. I don't want to support your business model of bilking people out of as much money as possible. I realize, that as a business, you want to make as much money as possible. What you are willfully ignoring is that this is to the detriment of the players. I want to play the game. I don't want to constantly be made to feel that I am missing out if I don't spend more money. I also realize that the game can be completed without spending any more money. As someone who really likes strategy, this seems like leaving a lot of possible strategy moves out of the game. (your point exactly buy buy buy...) This is nowhere near the irritation that loot boxes, in game ads and more aggressive micro transactions produce in me. But it is in the same realm. It is wrong, I am tired of it. I am tired of ignoring these practices. Locked assets that can only be unlocked by purchases-> NO.
So I am going to choose the only route open to me that has any chance at all of stopping these all too common 'business' practices and that is NOT TO PLAY. You could have had $60 dollars and now you get none. It sucks cause I really want to play. The game is AWESOME! However, I will choose games that do not follow these practices, even if they aren't as good... sigh
I'm not connected with Ubisoft... just another player.
But if I'm reading your comment right, it seems like your big concern is that you feel like Ubisoft is willfully trying to cheat players out of their money. The thing is, what you were mainly paying for was the toys. If you're not a toy lover -- and I'm not -- then there's the digital route.
Also a minor correction to your math: the Collection 1 pack takes you up to the $80 Digital Deluxe level, not the $60 Digital level.
I'll also note that the whole toys-to-life thing turned out to be a very expensive debacle for Ubisoft. Sales of the toys were way below expectations, and (as you've noted) the existence of the toys confused potential customers for the digital versions. Ubisoft has announced that no more toys are forthcoming. Starlink will be all-digital from here on out, and I doubt that you'll see any more toys from Ubisoft for any game. It was a hard lesson learned for them.
Sorry mate, but I'm in disappoint with your point of view. I'm - like you - a new player of Starlink and I've joined the game just for the briliant idea about the toys experience. I've tryed the starter pack (for PS4) and after two days I've buying the Lance ship and another weapons pack. Playing with two ship and differents weapons my experience was improved a lot! What I've done then? I've buyed ALL the Starships, the pilots and the weapons packs available.Originally Posted by dauggie Go to original post
If you had thinked that toys was too expensive you had to bought immediatly the digital edition and not the physical one.
So, my advice, is not to give up about this game. Buy the digital edition!
Unfortunately this game was underestimated, and this drives Ubisoft to not invest on it's production. As a player I wish to see, one day, a multiplayer mode and more and more planets and quests
Only the players can made this possible by supporting Starlink!
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Ok yes I bought the wrong version. I should have started with the digital version. Originally my plan was to return the toy version, which I did, and then buy the digital version. However, I just got madder and madder all day, until I decided I was NOT going to participate in this pay to play scheme. Ubisoft is not the only triple A studio guilty of trying to monetize more and more aspects of game play. Their scheme of locked assets behind a paywall is not even that horrible. It is annoying though.
Call me old-fashioned but you used to be able to unlock assets through gameplay. I fear that if we as gamers just go along with this, it will get worse. We will be asked to pay real world money more and more just to progress. Triple A studios are moving to adopt the horrible monetization practices that mobile gaming is rife with. I'm tired of ignoring this behavior. The only recourse, aside from complaining, is to say: no I won't support this behavior at all. For example, I loved Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much, if I was shown that I could play as Peach, if I bought her. Especially if the only way to play as Peach was to buy her.
So first I was mad that I bought the wrong version. Digital is not the same as physical if toys are involved, OK. Then I was mad that, if you bought the wrong version, you had to essentially, buy the game again. And ultimately I am mad that most of the game's assets are locked behind a paywall. And yes, I understand that if you buy the 'right' version, the paywall is gone (well, paid to be removed). Doesn't this seem to be needlessly complex? It takes me right out of any possible immersion and makes my brain spin in irritation.
I so want to play Starlink. I also think I am not the only one with this opinion and without this paywall, Starlink would be much much more successful.
Do I understand correctly that what you don't like is paid DLC?
In the case of Starlink:BfA, you're not paying to play. You can play the game entirely with the starter kit. There are a few Warden spires that are nearly impossible to unlock with only starter-kit weapons, but those can be left locked with no harm except to the completionists who want to see everything 100% done. Okay, there's one exception on the Switch that I'll get to in a moment.
Ubisoft provided the huge Crimson Moon update free of charge. That included a number of new activities, two new campaigns, and of course the all-important paint jobs. All of that was free, even if you had only the starter kit.
At the same time, though, on the Switch a locked campaign was added (Star Fox Reunion) that can only be played if you buy the Star Fox Team DLC. Which not only unlocks the campaign, it gives you three more pilots. So... the one significant thing you can't do with the starter kit is the Star Fox Reunion campaign; that'll cost an extra $12 (US). Considering that this is content that had to be specially developed for a single platform, and that there probably were additional licensing fees to Nintendo, maybe that's not so bad? I dunno. At the same time, you could argue that Ubisoft is greedily leveraging the undeniably high interest in the Star Fox tie-in to Starlink:BfA.
Significant personal opinion follows...
The thing with paid DLC is that it really needs to enhance game play. Maybe not necessarily unlock something, but make some aspects more enjoyable or easier or something. IN MY OPINION, the new pilots, ships, and weapons in the Collection 2 pack fail to deliver anything like a game-changing experience. At more than half the price of the Digital Deluxe edition, but with only a fraction of the content, the Collection 2 pack should be pretty spectacular, but it isn't.
I'd gotten a $30 gift card for my birthday, so I paid only $20 out of pocket for the Collection 2 pack. I consider the other $30 to be a "thank you" to Ubisoft for the free Crimson Moon update, and a bit of encouragement to continue developing the Starlink series.
I have no problem with paid DLC. The way this game is structured just left a bad taste in my mouth. I probably wouldn't have noticed it, if I had bought the digital version first. But I didn't and what I saw then was ALL the assets except for 2 ships, 3 guns, and 2 pilots locked behind a paywall. Foolish me, I thought I could earn these assets through gameplay. So an initial locked symbol on an asset doesn't bother me. I kept playing. Then I looked online, found out I could never earn them and thought well that sucks. And I kept playing, because I know that this game came be played with only those assets. But EVERY time you die, you are prompted to load another ship, which means EVERY time you are reminded that you have to pay to use those assets. It takes me out of immersion. I don't like this way of doing business. I want to buy a game and play it, not be made to feel I need to pay more money to play more effectively. Or in my case, what an idiot I am, I bought the wrong version, I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb...I don't need that.
I love the game and might buy it, with all the assets, when it goes on sale digitally. I am disappointed in the paywall, NOT the game. And because of that paywall, I will NOT pay full price for that game, because I do not want this practice to continue. I may not ever buy this game because there is always another game to play. The money guys WILL force 'features' like this as much as they can, if we as gamers keep saying ok, here's some more money.
In my opinion DLC is for extra gameplay after you finish the main storyline of the game. So instead of these assets being DLC, I see them as being behind a paywall, an in your face paywall, a constant irritating reminder that more money is needed. Anyway potatoes poTAToes, doesn't matter what you call it. It is disappointing.
In the meantime Fire Emblem Three Houses comes out tomorrow and I'll be playing that. I highly doubt that game is going to constantly make me feel that I am missing out if I don't pony up more money. So I will buy the game, and play the game. There are 3 main storylines, so I will probably play the game 3 times at least. Then if they come out with DLC, I'll decide then, if I want to buy it. See the difference?
I bought the starter pack on release. It was worth 75€, but the price came down to 65€ in 3 days so they refunded me 10€. I wanted the physical version just because I wanted to have the cartridge and be able to lend the game to my friends if necessary. It was very disappointing to see the game needed an extra 6GB download on release. All my problems started with that. I could have downloaded the whole patch before starting to play, but I didn't, I wanted to try to see how much content there was on the cartridge and how much on the download. I couldn't tell, the patch was downloaded very fast while I played my first time.
I finished the game's campaign + Starfox campaign with the basic content in a month or so. At that date the starter pack was worth 45€. I didn't care. I saw how much the extra content was worth in the eshop, it was terrorific and dreadful. They asked for about extra 70€ for the rest of the content (DLC collection bundle 1) I refused to buy it until it was 50% off.
The we realised about the bugs, many shipwrecks and ruins can't be conquered/ appear as unconquered even if you conquer them/ appear as unconquered even if you had correctly conquered them before a new patch. The same happens with some Atlas encyclopedia entries, entries you had already achieved started disappearing with new updates, some of them only appeared once in the game (now they have made flawless cyclops appear more than once)
Some say it is because we started playing before everything was downloaded, but I don't know the real reason. I haven't played since March or April. I left the some of the Crimsom Moon content untouched, willing to continue playing some months later.
I finally bought DLC collection bundle 2 when it was %60 off, and bought Starfox pilots at whole price. I am willing to enjoy those two new campaigns, but I have started to complete some planets before doing that, and I get many bugs, now I have 2 planets maxed 100% 3 planets not maxed because of bugs and 2 planets still on the works. This feeling is very shameful. I have paid a lot for this game, even if I felt kind of stupid, I did it as a kind of guilty pleasure, paying much more than what I thought it was worth it. I would say DLC bundle 2 is the worst thing after the bugs. Some of the weapons are the MK1 versions of the MK2 versions we already had before!
I just don't understand how I end up playing the games that treat me the worst way hahaha!!
This is common with Switch game cartridges. The cartridges aren't updated after the initial release. All fixes and new content are downloaded when you load the game.Originally Posted by katukinabarra Go to original post
I went with Digital Deluxe, which had patches, and then the Crimson Moon update. I've only encountered one bug that prevented 100% completion -- the one wreck on Sonatus that has since been fixed.The we realised about the bugs, many shipwrecks and ruins can't be conquered/ appear as unconquered even if you conquer them/ appear as unconquered even if you had correctly conquered them before a new patch. The same happens with some Atlas encyclopedia entries, entries you had already achieved started disappearing with new updates, some of them only appeared once in the game (now they have made flawless cyclops appear more than once)
I've played Starlink for over a thousand hours now, starting it over maybe a hundred times using different pilots, ships, strategies, etc. The bugs that bug me are in the voice notifications. The non-routine ones often occur while you're actively engaged in combat and can't take the time to listen/read to follow what's going on. The routine ones are often late, just plain wrong, or sometimes get skipped (especially if you're zipping along in a fast ship). The voices for Expedition and Prospector characters routinely encountered are hard to listen to -- they seem to have been pitch-shifted. Those voices also sometimes change during an exchange (gee, Mr. Prospector, are you going through puberty that your voice suddenly lowered like that?)
I've had some bugs that went away when I archived the game and redownloaded it. That takes an hour or two on my fast Wi-Fi. I've had some other bugs that seem to be related to a corrupted game save; they weren't there when I restarted a new game. The game and data are on a micro-SD card, and maybe there's an issue there.
I haven't encountered any bugs specific to the Collection 2 Pack (which is definitely way over-priced). As to the weapons in that pack, there are 4 new ones (unless you already had the Fury Cannon from the Scramble Ship Pack), 4 that are Mk2 versions of some of the old weapons, and 3 that are Mk1 versions of some of the old Mk2 weapons. The new Mk2 weapons give you that extra mod slot, of course, and they also level-up faster than the original versions, but they're definitely not like new weapon designs. The new Mk1 weapons... well, I have no idea why they're there.
You might want to try archiving the game and redownloading it. All you'll lose is the hour or two or whatever that it takes to redownload.